The life writings and death of richard hofstadter

That the reactionary ideology communicated in mass-media reportage misrepresented the liberal political activism and social protest of students as frivolous, social activities thematically unrelated to the academic curriculum, which is the purpose of attending university. As such, Charles Beard perceived the American Civil War —65 as a South-to-North transference of political power, progressing from slavery to industrial capitalism, because neither the Union nor the Confederacy was truly interested in resolving the cultural and constitutional contradictions of American slavery.

Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Sciencethe epistemologist Larry Laudan said that the prevailing type of philosophy taught at university in the U. Historical circumstances aside, any formal evaluation of Richard Hofstadter must come to terms with his rare gift for literary expression.

Within a year and a half, however, his circumstances changed dramatically. The slash-and-burn campaigns that pass as political discourse in our own times would have offended and depressed Hofstadter, for they emphasize what divides rather than unites Americans.

By the end of the great twenties bull market, immigrant America had found its first voices in politics Al Smithlaw Felix Frankfurterand aesthetics Meyer Schapiro. Postmodernism and Poststructuralism is anti-intellectual, because "the displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter, by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is — second only to American political campaigns — the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.

It protected him though less than he imagined from the incestuous academic circles, stale debates, and provincial attitudes that sometimes constricted intellectual life in the East.

Hofstadter respected history, took it on its own terms, and according to the merits of evidence, demonstrated an admirable responsiveness to rethinking earlier positions and revising earlier statements.

In weak moments he lost sight of the American stage altogether and projected the great evil of his day—fascism—across the national landscape.

His rebellion against the dominant trends of prewar historiography occurred as others close to him remained committed to the inherited past. It was an astute rather than crippling judgment that aligned with his way of looking at the world.

From its colonial beginnings, American society was a "decapitated" society—largely lacking the top-most social layers of European society. The Middle West is our authentic America.

In the introduction, Hofstadter states his point clearly: Excerpt from pages xiii-xxiii of Richard Hofstadter: I say bee not deceived by these pompes, empty shewes, and faire representations of goodly condition before the eyes of flesh and blood, bee not taken with the applause of these persons.

He was a derisive critic and parodist of every American Utopia and its wild prophets, a natural oppositionist to fashion and its satirist, a creature suspended between gloom and fun, between disdain for the expected and mad parody. His friend David Herbert Donald said, "as a liberal who criticized the liberal tradition from within, he was appalled by the growing radical, even revolutionary, sentiment that he sensed among his colleagues and his students.

In the s Hofstadter abandoned political causes, feeling that intellectuals were no more likely to "find a comfortable home" under socialism than they were under capitalism.

Footnotes and other references included in the book may have been removed from this online version of the text.

This biography is naturally an extended conversation with the formal writings of Richard Hofstadter. It is also attentive, however, to the personal and private circumstances that shaped his work.

An exploration of Hofstadter’s inner life provides an indispensable tool for evaluating his scholarship and politics within the context of his sense.

Hofstadter's untimely death from leukemia at 55, incertainly deprived America of one of her foremost thinkers. This book, one of about 6 major works that he wrote, is around pages, arranged in chapters of about 30 pages apiece, with notes at the end of each elleandrblog.coms: Intellectual and anti-intellectual: Political cartoonist Thomas Nast contrasts the reedy scholar with the bovine boxer, epitomizing the populist view of reading and study as antithetical to sport and athleticism.

Note the disproportionate heads and bodies, with the size of the head representing "mental" ability and intelligence, and the size of the body. Aug 06, · Richard Hofstadter's career as a professional historian paralleled the heyday of twentieth-century liberalism ().

Renowned publisher of classics. to deconstruct is not to destroy Deconstruction is always a the life writings and death of richard hofstadter double Darwin and evolution: Recommended reading Darwins life There are more Darwin biographies in print than anyone could possibly read A good short overview of Darwin the life writings and death.

"Richard Hofstadter: The Ironies of an American Historian". Pacific Historical Review. 43 (1): 1– doi/ JSTOR Johnston, Robert D. "The Age of Reform": A Defense of Richard Hofstadter Fifty Years On," Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 6#2 (), pp.